1928 United States presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 6, 1928. In a landslide victory, the Republican ticket of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and Senator Charles Curtis defeated the Democratic ticket of New York Governor Al Smith and Senator Joseph T. Robinson. After President Calvin Coolidge declined to seek reelection, Hoover emerged as the Republican Party's frontrunner. As Hoover's party opponents failed to unite around a candidate, Hoover received a large majority of the vote at the 1928 Republican National Convention. The strong state of the economy discouraged some Democrats from running, and Smith was nominated on the first ballot of the 1928 Democratic National Convention. Hoover and Smith had been widely known as potential presidential candidates long before the 1928 campaign, and both were generally regarded as outstanding leaders. Both were newcomers to the presidential race and presented in their person and record an appeal of unknown potency to the electorate. Both faced serious discontent within their respective parties' membership, and both lacked the wholehearted support of their parties' organization. In the end, the Republicans were identified with the booming economy of the 1920s, and Smith, a Roman Catholic, suffered politically from anti-Catholic sentiment particularly in the Solid South, his opposition to Prohibition, and his association with the legacy of corruption by Tammany Hall. Hoover won a third straight Republican landslide and made substantial inroads in the traditionally-Democratic Solid South by winning several states that had not voted for a Republican since the end of Reconstruction. Smith carried the five states of the Deep South, his running mate's home state of Arkansas, and the Northeastern states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Hoover's victory made him the first president born west of the Mississippi River, and he remains the most recent Cabinet secretary to win a presidential election. Charles Curtis became the first (and thus far the only) Native American vice president, and the first vice president with acknowledged non-European ancestry. This was the last Republican presidential victory until 1952. As of 2026, this is the most recent presidential election in which the winning ticket was the same party as the incumbent without being the incumbent President or Vice President.